Life expectancy at birthMale: (2016) 72.5 yearsFemale: (2016) 77.4 years

Literacy: percentage of population age 15 and over literateMale: (2012) 90.8%Female: (2012) 79.2%

GNI (U.S.$ ’000,000)(2015) 27,797

GNI per capita (U.S.$)(2015) 1,248

(1) Islam is required to be the religion of the head of state and is the basis of the legal system.(2) The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that, as of November 2017, more than 5.3 million Syrian refugees
had left the country as a result of the Syrian Civil War.

Did You Know?

Syria has six UNESCO heritage sites, including the ancient cities of Aleppo, Bosra, and Damascus.

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Introduction

The Syrian Arab Republic, located in the Middle East at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, lies at the heart of a region that has experienced intense political conflict since World War II. Syria is bordered on the north by Turkey, on the east and southeast by Iraq, on the south and southwest by Jordan, on the southwest by Israel, and on the west by Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea. Syria’s strategic location and considerable military power give it a political significance within the Middle East that contrasts with its small size and economic potential. The capital of Syria is Damascus. Area 71,498 square miles (185,180 square kilometers). Population (2017 est.) 18,907,000.

Land and Climate

Heretiq

Syria’s terrain, climate, and vegetation are diverse. Mountains dominate the western and southwestern margins and separate the narrow coastal plain from the interior. The Anti-Lebanon Mountains, the highest range, straddle the boundary with Lebanon and are high enough to receive heavy snow in winter. Most of the remainder of Syria to the east of these mountains is a plateau.

The coastal plain experiences warm, humid summers and mild, wet winters and receives enough rain for crops to be grown without irrigation. The interior, by contrast, has cold winters, especially in the north, and extremely hot summers, particularly in the east. Much of the interior is desert or semidesert. Because so much of Syria is dry, no large rivers originate within the country. The two major rivers, the Euphrates and Orontes, have headwaters in Turkey and Lebanon, respectively. Both are crucial for irrigation. A large dam was constructed on the Euphrates in 1973 to open new areas for farming as well as to generate electricity. Access to water governs where people live. Most of Syria’s people live on the coastal plain between the ports of Latakia and Tartus and in a north-south axis between Damascus, the capital, and Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. Few Syrians live outside the country’s more humid western and northern margins.

People

Roughly four-fifths of the country’s people are Arab. Most are native Syrians, and a smaller number are Bedouin or Palestinian. There are also small minorities of Kurds and Armenians. The official and most widely spoken language is Arabic. Other languages spoken in Syria include Kurdish, Armenian, and Turkish.

Although Syria does not have an official religion, the majority of its residents are Muslim. Most of the Muslims belong to the Sunnite branch, while smaller numbers are members of the Shiʿite ʿAlawite or Druze sects. Islam is the required religion of the head of state and forms the basis of the Syrian legal system. The non-Muslim population is largely Christian and is concentrated in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo.

Syria’s rate of population growth is among the highest in the Middle East. The country’s cities, particularly Damascus, have grown quickly because of migration from the countryside. Because of the high birth rate, more than one-third of all Syrians are under the age of 15. Syrians are well educated, and great strides have been made in reducing illiteracy, especially in urban areas and among males.

Economy

The Syrian government controls the most vital sectors of the country’s economy and regulates private business. The state operates the oil refineries, the large electricity plants, the railways, and various manufacturing plants.

Shostal Associates

Syria’s economy has undergone a profound transformation since the 1960s. Agriculture is still a leading sector of the economy and a main source of employment, though its share of gross domestic product has declined relatively as Syria has industrialized. Less than one-third of the country is cultivated because of aridity and poor soils. The most common crops are wheat and sugar beets. Extreme fluctuations in grain production from year to year because of rainfall variability have traditionally caused much hardship for the rural population. Cotton is the chief cash crop and was Syria’s leading export until the mid-1970s. Other leading crops include vegetables, citrus fruits, olives, and tobacco. Sheep and goats are grazed in many areas. In the driest environments nomadism is common, though this way of life is declining and is practiced by very few Syrians today.

Many of Syria’s industries, such as food processing and textiles, are based on agriculture. In the mid-1960s the government began a policy of rapid industrialization, especially in the areas of iron and steel and other heavy industries. Factories now turn out a wide range of products, including cement, pharmaceuticals, glass items, plywood, and batteries.

Syria is not a major petroleum producer by Middle East standards. Nevertheless, petroleum is the leading export, and a petrochemical industry has developed around the main refineries. A major oilfield was discovered in the Deir ez-Zor region in the mid-1980s. The country also produces natural gas. Syria has large phosphate deposits, which are used in its fertilizer industry.

Syria’s service sector contributes heavily to the country’s overall income. Since the early 2000s, privatization in real estate, insurance, and trade has stimulated growth. The country attracts tourism with numerous historical sites, including ancient and Classical ruins, Muslim and Christian religious sites, and Crusader and medieval Islamic architecture.

Syrian development has given a high priority to building a good transportation system, the absence of which hindered the country’s economic growth in the past. Modern ports have been developed at Latakia and Tartus, with the result that Syria no longer needs to trade through Beirut in Lebanon. Major cities are now all linked by modern highways or by an extensive railway network. International airports are located in Damascus and Aleppo; airports in several cities handle domestic air traffic.

Government

The Syrian constitution of 1973 declares that all legislative power lies with the people and that freedom of expression and equality before the law are guaranteed. However, the enforcement of these principles has not been thorough. Especially from the late 1970s, constitutionally guaranteed rights were increasingly suppressed.

Syria is a multiparty republic with one legislative house, the People’s Council. Most authority is wielded by the ruling Arab Socialist Baʿth (Renaissance) Party. The regional (Syrian) leadership of the party elects the president, who is head of state and government. The president must be a Muslim. The regional party leadership also appoints the country’s cabinet, which exercises legislative as well as executive powers. The members of the People’s Council are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The Baʿth Party is constitutionally guaranteed an absolute majority. Although all adults can vote, elections are generally not considered by international observers to be free and fair.

History

G. Dagli Orti/DeA Picture Library

Syria has one of the world’s longest recorded histories. Excavations at Ebla indicate there was a large state in the region in the 3rd millennium bc. Damascus boasts of being the world’s oldest continuously settled city.

Sam Abboud/FPG

Historically Syria was frequently invaded because of its strategic location at the crossroads of many civilizations. Its earliest rulers included the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks. The Romans included it in their empire in 64 bc. Subsequently Syria became part of Byzantium. The most significant and lasting conquest occurred in the 7th century ad, when Syria fell under Muslim Arab control. The country converted to Islam and was gradually influenced more and more by Arab culture.

From the mid-7th to the mid-8th century, Damascus was the capital of the great Muslim Arab Umayyad Empire. After that empire was overthrown Syria came under ʿAbbasid control. The Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Mongols also left their mark on Syria. From 1516 until World War I, Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire. Although Syria has been inhabited since antiquity, the modern state was not created until after World War I, when the French assumed control. Syria won full independence in 1946.

Since independence Syria’s history has been stormy. Frequent changes of government and military coups d’état characterized the period between 1949 and 1963, during which Syria involved itself deeply in moves to bring about Arab unity in the region. In 1958 Syria merged with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic, but three years later Syria pulled out of the union. Syria’s instability stemmed in part from deep regional and ideological divisions and in part from the disruptive effects of the conflict with Israel. Along with other Arab states, Syria had fought against the newly created State of Israel in 1948 (seeArab-Israeli wars). The humiliating failure of the Arab intervention in this war brought discredit to the governments of the Arab countries involved.

In 1963 a military coup d’état brought the socialist, pan-Arab Baʿth party to power in Syria. The Baʿth regime redistributed wealth and undermined the power base of the traditional ruling class through land reform and nationalization measures. Disputes within the Baʿth regime produced political change. In 1966 a more radical wing of the Baʿth party under Salah Jadid took power. Its unpopularity, and the loss of the Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, helped to bring Hafiz al-Assad to power in 1970. Assad, a moderate Baʿthist and pragmatist, tried initially to mend relations with Syria’s Arab neighbors and to liberalize the economy. Syria’s economy boomed in the early 1970s, partly because of the explosion of oil prices in the Arabian Peninsula. Assad’s popularity also grew following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, in which the Syrian armed forces performed creditably. Following a disengagement agreement with Israel, Syria recovered a small portion of the Golan Heights.

The Assad regime’s problems grew after the mid-1970s. Syria became deeply involved in the civil war in neighboring Lebanon in 1976. Israel, alarmed by the presence of many Palestinian Arabs and an extremely unstable political situation on Israel’s northern border, invaded Lebanon in 1982. Syria once again engaged in military skirmishes with Israel.

Discontent over the performance of the economy was accentuated by resentment among some Sunnite Muslims of the key role played by the ʿAlawite Muslim minority in the regime. Muslim fundamentalist groups began a campaign of bombings and assassinations of leading ʿAlawites in 1976. These attacks took the lives of several hundred Syrians and polarized the population along sectarian lines. The regime responded with harsh repression, further alienating some sectors. Large-scale disturbances broke out in Aleppo in 1980. In 1982 the army was called in to put down an insurrection in Hamah. As many as 25,000 people are believed to have died in the fighting.

Under Assad, Syria emerged as one of the Middle East’s leading powers. Assad’s powerful military machine relied on the Soviet Union for weapons and training. Syria supported Iran in its eight-year war with Iraq. By 1990, however, reliance on the Soviet Union had become impossible as that country drifted toward collapse. Thus, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Syria was quick to denounce the action and to ally itself with the United States and its allies in liberating Kuwait (seePersian Gulf War).

In 1991 Assad agreed to join Middle East peace talks between Arab states and Israel. Syria was rewarded with new economic development loans from the European Union and other sources. However, the talks did not lead to any agreements. U.S. President Bill Clinton attempted to resuscitate talks between Syria and the Palestinians, but Assad refused to negotiate.

Assad died in June 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad. Within months of taking office Bashar freed more than 600 political prisoners, but despite this and similar progressive actions the Syrian government remained firmly authoritarian.

Syria was elected to a seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council in 2001. Charges by the United States in 2003 that Syria was developing chemical weapons and aiding terrorists following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq were vehemently denied by Damascus. Citing security concerns, however, Syria expelled dozens of Iraqi refugees in the months following the onset of fighting in Iraq.

Relations between Syria and Lebanon grew strained in 2005. After Lebanon’s civil war, the two countries had signed a series of agreements of partnership and cooperation. Syria also continued to maintain a sizable contingent of armed forces in Lebanon. Early in 2005 Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri was assassinated, and it was widely suspected that the Syrian government had been involved in the killing. Under sharp international pressure, Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon by mid-2005. In late 2008 Syria and Lebanon established formal diplomatic ties for the first time.

Meanwhile, in 2007 Assad had won a second term as president. Critics denounced the elections—in which Assad ran unopposed and received just under 100 percent of votes cast—as a sham.

Reuters/Landov

In March 2011 the government faced an unprecedented challenge to its authority. Antigovernment protests broke out in Syria, inspired by a wave of similar demonstrations elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa that had begun in December 2010 (seeArab Spring). The Syrian government used violence to suppress demonstrations, making extensive use of police, military, and paramilitary forces. According to amateur video footage and eyewitness accounts—the primary sources of information in a country largely closed to foreign journalists—the Syrian security forces beat and killed protesters and fired indiscriminately into crowds. The protests intensified, however, and continued to spread across the country over many months.

As the violence continued, international condemnation of the government’s actions in Syria mounted. The European Union (EU), the United States, and the Arab League imposed economic sanctions against Syria, and the EU banned imports of Syrian oil. Syria became increasingly isolated from its regional allies, notably Turkey, which supported the Syrian opposition fighters.

By September 2011 armed opposition groups had emerged and begun to stage increasingly effective attacks against Syrian forces. In 2012 the antigovernment uprising evolved into a civil war, and the Syrian government continued to use its powerful military to suppress dissent. Meanwhile, peace plans brokered by the Arab League in 2011 and by the UN Security Council in 2012 both failed, and the violence continued.

In November 2012 Syrian opposition leaders announced the formation of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (sometimes called the Syrian National Coalition). Over the next month dozens of countries recognized the coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, rather than the Syrian government.

By late 2012 the military situation in Syria appeared to be approaching stalemate. The international allies of the Syrian government and the rebels stepped up their support. Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah supplied the Syrian government with weapons, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar funded and armed the rebels. Hezbollah had also begun sending its own fighters into Syria to battle the rebels.

United Media Office of Arbeen/AP Images

There were new calls for international military action in Syria after suspected chemical weapons attacks killed hundreds in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21, 2013. The Syrian opposition accused pro-Assad forces of having carried out the attacks. Syrian officials denied having used chemical weapons. They asserted that if such weapons had been used, rebel forces were to blame. U.S., British, and French leaders made it known that they were considering launching retaliatory strikes against the Syrian regime. Russia, China, and Iran spoke out against military action.

The prospect of international military intervention in Syria began to fade by the end of August 2013, in part because the majority of citizens in the United States and the United Kingdom were opposed to military action. A motion in the British Parliament to authorize strikes in Syria failed, and a similar vote in the U.S. Congress was postponed. Efforts to find a diplomatic resolution resulted in an agreement between Russia, Syria, and the United States on September 14 to place all of Syria’s chemical weapons under international control. Two days later a report by UN weapons inspectors confirmed that rockets carrying chemical weapons—the nerve gas sarin—had been used on a large scale in the attacks on August 21. The report, however, did not specify which side was responsible for the attacks.

The destruction of Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpile under the supervision of the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began in October 2013. In August of the following year the OPCW certified that all agents falling under Schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (substances with limited nonmilitary applications, such nerve gas, mustard gas, and their chemical precursors) had been destroyed. There were, however, reports in 2014 that government forces repeatedly used chlorine gas as a weapon, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In 2013 the largely secular anti-Assad opposition represented by the Free Syrian Army increasingly saw itself being eclipsed by a variety of Islamist militant groups. In April 2013 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced his intention to combine his forces in Iraq and Syria under the name Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS]). From eastern Syria, ISIL launched a series of successful operations in both Syria and Iraq; the western Iraqi cities of Al-Fallujah and Al-Ramadi came under its control in early 2014, and a subsequent offensive captured Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. In control of a wide swath of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, ISIL proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate, with al-Baghdadi as caliph, in June 2014. In the areas ISIL controlled, it imposed a strict version of Islamic law. It also cultivated a reputation for brutality, staging public executions and killing or expelling non-Muslims.

Ulas Yunus Tosun—EPA/Alamy

ISIL’s sudden advances in Iraq alarmed the international community and multiplied calls for action. Limited air strikes launched by the United States in August 2014 slowed the group’s advance in Iraq, and in September the United States, leading an international coalition that included Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, expanded its air campaign to include targets in Syria. In 2015, Russia, a supporter of the Assad regime, began to take a more active role in the conflict. Though Russia claimed that air strikes it launched in Syria targeted ISIL, opposition activists and U.S. officials stated that they believed the strikes to be against rebels fighting against Assad.

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